TORONTO: The Inquiry Commission probing the 1985 bombing of the Air India plane `Kanishka' has observed that racism played a part in the way Ottawa responded to the tragedy that killed 329 passengers on board.

Its ``hard not to share'' an impression held by some of the families of the victims that race played a factor in how the investigation was handled, Justice John Major of the Air India Bombing Inquiry Commission said.

``That is the fact that, if it had been an Air Canada plane and Anglo-Saxons, things would have been different,'' he said when former Ontario Premier Bob Rae testified before the Commission.

A Canadian tragedy

Mr. Rae said he gathered from his interactions with the families of the victims that they felt their loss had not been adequately understood as a Canadian tragedy.

``Many of them said to me that if the colour of their skin had been different, the level of sharing would have been different. Whole families were wiped out,'' Mr. Rae said. ``This is a Canadian tragedy. It happened to us,'' he said.

Mr. Rae, however, found no evidence of racism among government officials, police and intelligence officers during his preliminary investigation.

"Culturally-driven' issues

But he noticed ``culturally-driven'' issues such as delays of several weeks in translating wiretapped conversations of the bombing suspects from Punjabi into English.

The delays were caused by the lack of qualified translators, which the U.S. authorities also experienced in their surveillance efforts prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mr. Rae said. — PTI

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